From the LA Times:

“Southern California home prices may have finally hit bottom, with median values rising last month for the first significant increase in two years, new data show.”

For the first time in 9 months fewer than half of the sales were foreclosures while the prices rose 6.4% in May.

“I think we can now say with fair degree of confidence the pace of real home price declines has slowed dramatically,” said Los Angeles economist Christopher Thornberg, who was an early predictor of the housing bubble.

“Sales in many higher-cost neighborhoods couldn’t have gotten much lower, so this recent uptick in activity should come as no surprise,” MDA DataQuick President John Walsh said. “The recession and problem mortgages are fueling more high-end distress, hence more high-end bargains.”

The percentage of homes that sold in June for more than $500,000 rose to about 20% of all homes purchased, up from 18% in May.

Additionally only 45% of the homes sold had been foreclosed upon, DataQuick said, the lowest percentage since July 2008. Foreclosures peaked at 57% of total sales in February.  Escrow closed on a total of 23,262 new and resale houses and condominiums in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego counties last month. That was up 12% from 20,775 in May and up 29% from a year earlier.

Los Angeles County’s median home price in June was $320,000, up from $300,000 in May….In Orange County, the median price went from $410,000 in May to $418,000 in June…The median price in San Diego County rose from $295,000 in May to $314,000 in June.

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